Call It A Comeback
Should be back sometime Thursday, but a stomach virus is making its way through the family.
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Barack Obama
Rain Storm which should be on fire with the Clarke revelations
and
NEW–the DCCC–go sign up for their activist alerts. They also have some juicy stuff up on their blog about DeLay. Let’s make him the minority by giving to both the DCCC and Melissa Bean.
Dan got there first, but Emil Jones shows his wit again.
Senate President Emil Jones ? who backed Obama ? wasn’t as cordial when asked later about Rush’s attendance: “I should have told him not to come: Bobby ‘Price is Right’ Rush.”
Emil had the line of 2003 when he addressed Phyllis Schlafly during ERA hearings:
“My only regret about bringing up this proposed constitutional amendment is that it has resurrected you.”
Both Democrats and Republicans have come out swinging in order to define the other side as either too liberal or too conservative.
Tom Roeser devoted his Sunday column to pointing out Obama’s liberal policies.
As a screed to the party faithful that is fine, but Kerry is up on Bush by 11-15 points in Illinois so this hardly seems like an effective strategy. In another strange twist, Roeser seems to think that Obama would vote for an automatic pullout in Iraq. This strikes me as a strange criticism when the GOP nominee has said he’d vote for no more money in Iraq.
As they might say, the devil is in the details because minority voters want vouchers under the condition that they are real vouchers and not some pittance that will only help a few. Ryan’s proposals are unlikely to be very helpful. Small scholarships only help in Catholic schools–of which there are limited spaces. Remember the theory behind vouchers is that they will spur development of more choices, but to only give an amount to cover a Catholic school misses the fact that the Archdiocese often subsidizes tuition and always subsidizes buildings–the existence of current buildings is a tremendous benefit to a school. Trying to run new schools on the same cost–even if one included the subsidy would be nearly impossible. Add to that the problem of students having a high proportion of special ed kids and the costs only increase further.
Now, if Ryan is serious about public school choice and opening up schools like New Trier to out of district students—go for it Jack! Just let me know how you handle the bourgieous riot outside of your house in Wilmette.
Axelrod, Obama’s political consultant, suggested that Jack! was too extreme. Is he any more accurate? Well, I tend to think he is too conservative for Illinois, but I’ll get into that over time. The key to paint Obama as too liberal is to tie him to issues that people see as silly positions on the left. Unfortunately, neither Roeser or Byrne identify such an issue in their arguments. They might reinforce conservative beliefs about Obama, but not much else.
In what I think is one of the more interesting developments in the Senate race, it appears the US Attorney for Northern Illinois is now out of play as an issue—both Dick Durbin and Obama support keeping Patrick Fitzgerald regardless of who is President.
Okay, quick, get them to both agree to appoint a Fitzgerald like guy if he moves on to bigger and better things and get Hastert and Ryan to agree to the same thing.
No, not the Chicago Fire Commissioner, but the loony Illinois Leader environmental commentator
This week, Ms. Morrison complains that reintroduction programs are causing changes to the environment and we shouldn’t mess with mother nature.
Okay, who gets the irony here? If you read her column, you realize in one instance she isn’t even talking about reintroduction, but even more importantly–it is messing with mother nature that caused a need for reintroduction. Unless she wants to treat every bit of development as ‘nature’ than her entire column falls down on its own logic. Nothing, new, but kinda funny.
The funniest bit is the Panther siting in Hardin. Having spent some time–especially some nights in Hardin, let me guess—someone had been drinking at the Barefoot Inn for a few too many hours and saw a big pink panther…..
On a more serious note, non-native species often due find their way to areas because mother nature has been messed with through spraw. But Morrison would never suggest that. I think we might be on our way to another black helicopter column. In a previous column she suggested black helicopters were part of a plot to discredit critics of the UN–so the black helicopter conspiracy theory is created by the UN to discredit conspiracy theorists..I couldn’t make this stuff up if I wanted to.
Drudge style for a Drudge like report,
Via Tim Blair
Why did Morgan Fairchild give to Howard Dean, Dick Gephardht and John Edwards, but not the man she once dated, John Kerry?
Is there some dark secret from that relationship we don’t know about?
Developing….
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has unveiled Brad Carson (OK), Barack Obama and Ken Salazar (CO) as their Dream Team. Uhhh…guys, it is nice to showcase the diverse talent in this year’s race, but women tend to throw more money in when there is a little testosterone balance on the Dream Team. Admittedly, of the challengers for the Dems this year only Farmer has any shot–and that isn’t a good shot, but as a fundraising appeal, it might help.
(story on The Hotline)
In other Senate news, Grassley has a challenger in Iowa. Art Small. He will probably do worse than the last challenger, one David Osterberg–a former professor at my alma mater–Cornell College. But that wasn’t very good either.
That isn’t even me, that is the headline to an article in the Post-Dispatch from Sunday’s edition. I had planned on dropping this, but the regular media isn’t so…..
Let me make this clear, we don’t know much about what is in the sealed portions of the file. We do know that Ryan tried to have it sealed apparently due to embarrassing portions that might have an effect on him politically, and we know that a rival campaign has claimed that some very bad things are contained. We also know that Jeri Ryan didn’t want the records sealed, at least at first.
The larger point, as has been made in comments is that whether there is damaging information or not, the story will continue and for as long as that story is out there Ryan will never get to address the issues he wants to use to define the race. Right now that is critical to getting initial favorable impressions for voters. While it goes on, it allows Obama to deplore the negativity while defining the election in his favor.
Now Edgar has suggested he needs to get the files out there, as has former Edgar aide, Mike Lawrence. One complaint to the P-D about this, they should have identified Lawrence as an Obama supporter for the interview. While Lawrence is as honest as they come, this is a conflict readers should know about.
The undercurrent of much of the reporting is already who might replace Ryan on the ticket if he melts down. Errrr….this is not the way to use your honeymoon after a fairly decent victory in a divided primary.
Now to get on to the speculation, who might replace Ryan? Not Topinka or Edgar. Topinka has little desire to go to D.C. and if she is to go for higher office it’ll be in a final showdown between social conservatives and Combine Republicans over the Statehouse. Edgar seems to like his life and a Senate race is more than he wants to go through from all indications I’ve seen.
My guess if the party replaces Ryan? Rauschenberger–squeaky clean and popular with both combine elements and with social conservatives. I know, I know, I always overestimate how well Rauschenberger will do. It is hard to imagine such a campaign overcoming the craziness if Ryan were to drop out, but it might raise his profile over O’Malley and others providing a more sane alternative that is still conservative for the Governor’s race.
Apparentltly the ICFST doesn’t have enough fights going on so the Cook County Republicans are having a bitter contest for Cook County Chair.
The great part is that the conservative wing isn’t happy with either candidate:
Others were less charitable. ?They (Murphy and Peraica) are equally worthless,? said Jack Roeser, President of the Carpentersville-based Family Taxpayers Network (FTN). ?The Cook County party is going nowhere until someone not appointed by (Republican National Committeeman) Bob Kjellander and Judy Baar is positioned to lead. As long as Kjellander and Topinka are around, no unity is possible.?
ICFST==Illinois Circular Firing Squad Team==Illinois Republican Party
The City of Chicago Department of Human Services and 45 Chicago Police Officers will be conducting a count of homeless persons overnight. The point of this will become clear in the next few weeks, but this is first step in a new Daley initiative.
ArchPundit